The Cub & the Cougar

Check your road

The Cub gave me a personal dispensation from blog posting over the past several months due to an unfortunate series of personal events that has bordered on the catastrophic. However, since we share the uncanny ability to listen to each other, I heeded his entreaties to get back in the saddle and write damn it!

The dreariness of the month of January leads us humans to personal reflection. Thoughts turn inward as we set expectations through soul searching. Thoughts also turn outward as we try to put those goals into motion. This brings a favorite quote to mind from Ayn Rand that is apt for this time of year.

“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it’s yours.”

Her advice to check your road and the nature of your battle reminds me of the importance of periodically checking our path. This holds particular significance for me since for most of my life I neglected this sound advice. The truth is that we all fall prey to the normal tendency to get wrapped up in the present and, being so consumed with perpetuating a few steps ahead, we forget to ask ourselves if it serves us well. Some time later we may realize that we’ve gotten off our path and become overwhelmed by the effort required to turn our personal journey back to the right road. So we give up and accept the path, live an unhappy, unfulfilled life eventually having a mid life crisis that rocks our world and most possibly, the lives of others closest to us.

The Cub and I are both checking our paths. We both feel that change is coming. Being young and as yet only marginally tested by the vagaries of life, he is hopeful about this change. Being older and unmoored repeatedly by disappointments, I am less hopeful. Likewise for his bevy of betches, life is promising change. Relationships are solidifying or unraveling; objectives are being met or ignored. In sum, the life paths of many are being considered. I think it promising that these young people are intelligent enough to take a moment to reflect on what their present path might indicate for their future; what the decisions of today could have on their tomorrows. Although we learned that a psychic doesn’t hold a looking glass into the future, we know intuitively that we should take an active ownership of our present (no, don’t eat that piece of cake!) or our future (change jobs, get an advanced degree, commit to a relationship). In the end, I actually have no desire to see the future just feel that my future is not so vulnerable. That means that I should feel confident that despite potential bad decisions, I have the ability to right my road.